“Your grandfather?”
“Mr. Bevan,” she said. “Did he think to impress me by sending his secretary?”
He sat down and propped his canes beside his chair. “Perhaps,” he said, “he wished to give you some choice about whether you see him or not, Samantha. If he had come this morning instead of his secretary, you would have had no choice. Perhaps he does not wish to force himself upon you.”
“Well,” she said, “I know he does not wish to do that. He never has.”
“But he is coming,” he said.
“So it would seem.”
She stared stormily at him, but he did not think she was really seeing him.
“I informed his secretary,” she said, “that I did not want to talk with him or know him or even see him. He told me that if I intended to continue living here it was almost inevitable that I see his employer from time to time unless I meant to be a hermit. He asked me if I intend going to church here.”
“Bevan goes?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “And so I said I would receive him. I will tell him what I think and send him on his way and then the matter is dealt with and done with. Whenever chance brings us within sight of each other after today, we will be able to nod politely and continue with our own lives, undisturbed by our connection.”
She did not sound at all convinced.
“Shall I leave?” he asked her.
“No!” Her hands gripped the arms of her chair. “No, please. It is horribly cowardly of me not to want to face him alone. Perhaps I ought. And I daresay you are itching to get away before he puts in an appearance. Are you?”
“Samantha,” he said, “he is not my grandfather. And I daresay he is not a monster. If he is, I will be able to pose as your knight protector and fight him off with one of my canes. Either way, I will be happy to stay. I have a curiosity to see him.”
And to witness their first meeting.
She tilted her head to the side suddenly, and the dog scrambled to his feet and barked once. Through the open window came the unmistakable sounds of an approaching carriage.
She wished she had gone to Leyland Abbey. Better the devil you know … But, no, nothing could be worse than life lived under the unyielding gaze of the Earl of Heathmoor.
Besides, this was her cottage. She had the power to admit or exclude whomever she wished. She had chosen to allow her grandfather to call on her—for this occasion only. Soon he would be gone again and she would be free.
But that did not seem to help much at this precise moment. She stayed where she was and Ben stayed where he was as the carriage drew up outside the garden gate and the sound of voices came through the window. The only one who did not stay where he was was Tramp. He stood at the sitting room door, his nose almost pressed against its outer edge, eagerness in every line of his ungainly body, his tail waving like a flag in a breeze.
There was a knock on the outer door, and it opened almost immediately—Mrs. Price had obviously heard the arrival of the carriage too. There were a few moments of almost unbearable tension, and then there was a tap on the sitting room door. Mrs. Price opened it, and Tramp backed up a foot.
“Mr. Bevan, ma’am,” Mrs. Price said, saucer-eyed, though she had known he was coming.
He was not a very tall man, but he was solid-looking and had presence. He carried himself with confidence. He was silver-haired, though there was still some darkness mixed with the silver. He had a pleasant, good-humored face. He must have been a handsome man in his younger years. Indeed, he still was distinguished looking. He was expensively, fashionably dressed.
Samantha was on her feet without having been aware of rising.
He looked at her and then down at Tramp, who was barking and prancing and generally behaving in an undisciplined manner.
“A gentleman does not make himself deliberately conspicuous in company,” Mr. Bevan said with a lovely soft Welsh accent. “Sit.”
And Tramp, the traitor, sat and gazed up at his new friend with intelligent eyes and lolling tongue and lightly thumping tail.
“Mrs. McKay?” Mr. Bevan said. “Samantha?”
He fixed his eyes upon her and advanced across the room with confident strides, his right hand extended. He was almost of a height with her, she realized.
She had no choice, short of being deliberately ill-mannered, but to set her hand in his. He held it in a warm clasp and set his other hand on top of it, all the while gazing at her face.
“You are not very like your mother,” he said, “except in coloring. But, oh, girl, you do look like your grandmother.”
He raised her hand to his lips before relinquishing it.
“Mr. Bevan,” she said. “May I present Major Sir Benedict Harper?”
Ben had also got to his feet.
“Sir.” He inclined his head. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Mr. Bevan’s eyes swept over him. “Wounded in the wars, were you, Major?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ben said.
“And a friend of the late Captain McKay’s, I have heard,” Mr. Bevan said. “There is not much local news and gossip that does not reach my ears at Cartref, you know. I could muzzle my servants, I suppose, but why should I? I like a bit of gossip.”
He was looking keenly at Ben as he said it, and Samantha felt anger well inside her. To what gossip in particular was he referring? And what business was it of his?
“I never had the privilege of knowing Captain McKay,” Ben said, and Samantha’s eyes flew to his. “My acquaintance with his widow began after his death. When she decided to come here, goaded to it by circumstances she found intolerable, she had no one to accompany her. I offered my services. It was a less than satisfactory arrangement, sir, but it was the best that could be done.”